Ethan met his girlfriend Brianna on a school dating website five months ago. Their first date was at a restaurant in South Portland where they were both nervous but connected over small talk and pool. Brianna displayed direct verbal communication style by openly sharing her thoughts. During their date, Brianna unexpectedly kissed Ethan while they were playing pool, showing her nonverbal interest through physical touch. Overall their first date went well, displaying positive facial expressions, eye contact and body language as the night progressed. Ethan analyzes their relationship using concepts from the course text, finding that aspects like empathy, emotional disclosure and mutual understanding characterize their intimate bond. While still learning, Ethan believes communication and working through issues together has kept their romance healthy

1. Relationship Analysis
Presentation
Ethan P Duran

2. Description of how we met and
where we are today.
 I met my girlfriend Brianna, over this school dating website. When I
saw that she went to USM I started talking to her because the
profile picture looked cute and it sparked my interest. At the time
she was the only one online who was able to chat so daringly I
started chatting with her. She responded back and we chatted for 2
days before we first met.
 The first date that we went on was to Thatcher's in South Portland
that Monday night. I was nervous because it was a blind date but
she felt the same way.
 After that first night I thought that she will be a girl who I am going
to be with for a longtime because I was 23 years old going on 24
and I felt that this should be the last one. That was my mind set
going in to this relationship.
 We have been dating now for five months and it has like every
relationship has it ups and downs.
 I am going to present and describe about some concepts that I have
encountered in this relationship.

3. Verbal Messages
 When we first met at Thatcher's we were nervous but we
talked to each other. We played pool and we just had
small talk.
 Once the date got going we started to have more indepth conversations about more meaningful matters.
 There were words that she used that meant different to
show meaning to another word.
 While the date was going on as I remember she used
that the book calls direct verbal style. Brianna is the
type of person to tell you what is really going on in her
mind. She does not use any ambiguous terms.

4. Nonverbal Messages

On our first date we talked about if we were going to kiss each
other or not. Well we did but it was not at the end of the date
where I planed on kissing her. It was in the middle of the date
when we were playing pool and after one game she swiped her
arm around my hip and gripped me and kissed me.

I did not know how to react because I was caught off guard. Here
I was planning it to be at the end of the date but she sprung this
on me in the middle.

This showed non verbal because there was some body language
that indicated the she wanted to be kissed and that she wanted
some sort of touch.

Brianna was also showing to kinesis because she was looking at
me and making me think. The way that she moved and looked at
me she wanted me to kiss her. She was allowing me to study her
body language. This is known as kinesics.

On this first date there was a lot of eye contact because both of
us wanted to look at each other and wanted to see how it could
end up as in if there was going to be a second date. So there was
a lot of eye contact.

5. Non Verbal Messages
 As the date went on she and I were having fun playing
pool and just enjoying our first date.
 There was some non verbal's the we both used on this
first date. Some of them are:
 Facial expression
 Gestures
 Posture
 Touch
 Body orientation
 I am now going to go through some of these and tell you
how Brianna and I used these key concepts on our first
date.

6. Non Verbal:
Facial Expression
 On our first date both her and I used facial expression to
feel one another out. I could tell from the feeling on my
face and the look on her face that it was going well and
that there was going to be a second date.
 When I looked at her facial expression she was smiling
and she was having some fun beating me in some
games of pool.
 Every muscle in her face lit up because it seemed that
she was happy to be beating me in a game of pool.
 Her face at the end of the night said it all she took a
picture of us and she was smiling and so was I.

7. Non Verbal:
Gestures
 There were some gestures that she used to get me to
come to her after our first kiss to kiss me more. She
used the her finger and pointed at me to come over and
give her a quick kiss.
 When she touched my hip that was also a gesture
because it involved her hand and it suggested that she
wanted me to do something.

8. Non Verbal:
Posture
 At the beginning of our date both our postures were not
up to par. We did not really get close to each other
because we were still feeling one another out as in the
space.
 When we started playing pool that all changed because
we then had to be close to one another. What I noted
was that she was not the type of person to slouched
because she held her self in a proper manner and so did
I. It was all about the first impression.

9. Non Verbal:
Touch
 On our date after we kissed the whole touch rule was
not in effect anymore. What I mean by this was that I
held her hand after that and we cuddled on the couch.
 Once that we made contact with one another the gates
were open.
 When I reached for her had to hold it it showed that I
was there for her and to protect her from other men who
were in the bar. This also showed her that I was inserted
in her and no one else that was in the bar.
 What did got from me holding her had was safety and it
told her that she is mine.

10. Non Verbal:
Body Orientation
 There was a lot more of the body orientation as the
night went on. As the night went on we talked and our
bodies were now close to one another and we felt
comfortable being close to each other.
 When we were sitting on the couch watching TV at the
bar and talking I felt that I was to close so I asked
Brianna and she replied by say no you not.
 This made me at ease to know that she was fine with
cuddling and talking on our first date.

11. Non Verbal:
Paralanguage
 Brianna loves to talk and talk a lot. She comes from a large Italian
family and he is the youngest.
 When Brianna takes she uses all of paralangage concepts that we
have read in the book .For some examples Brianna uses:
 Paralanguage
 Pitch
 Volume
 Rate
 Quality
 Bri uses all of these when the talks.
 For some examples sometimes she uses rate and volume and rate
and quality all at the same time.
 I find that she uses volume when she starts to get upset about
something but this is common to all people.

12. Chapter 6:
Communication in the Life Cycle
of Relationships
 Brianna and I have been dating for a five months now
and I feel like as a couple we are at a good point
because we have been through a lot together.
 When reading chapter 6 about communicating in a
relationship I felt that all that was in the chapter applied
to our relationship.
 I will just go over a few concepts that are highlighted in
chapter 6.

13. Chapter 6:
The Functions of Communication
in a Relationship:
 When looking back at the last five months with Brianna and
reviewing the key concepts in chapter 6 I feel like some of
this can and probably already have been applied to our
relationship. These might include:
 Constitutive function-we talk and share what is going on with
one another and this is what makes us a strong couple
 Instrumental function-As I said in the above slide I would like
this to be my last relationship with a girl and she feels the same
way that he wants to get married. That is a personal goal of
mine but I told her to hold off on that until we are older.
 Indexical function-in a relationship I tend to take the weaker
control to allow the women to have some of the power but I
tend to let the relationship have equal power depending on
what is going on. We do trust each other because we love each
other and we have both been cheated on in our pervious
relationships, so we know how it feels.

14. Chapter 6:
Describing Relationships
 The relationship between Brianna and I is known as a
romantic relationship.
 We have our own friends that we introduced to one another.
 Some relationships that we have in our relationships are:
 Voluntary relationship-Briannas ‘best friend passed away a few
months ago and left behind a 5 year old son. I visit him when I
am with Bri because I like to allow him to see and play with
him.
 Involuntary relationship-Brianna has this friend who I don’t like
and have want to be around but I don’t have enough courage to
tell her because I feel like it will effect our relationship.
 Acquaintances-Brianna’s friend has a 1 year old kid at the age
of 19 and the father of the friends baby is a person who I don’t
see a lot and I only know him as the father of her friends baby.
 Friends- Bri and I have friends that help us when we are down
and out and happy for us when some thing fun happends.

15. Chapter 9-Supporting Others,
13-Comminicating in Intimate
Relationships
 I am going to pull the most important concepts that comes from these
chapters that I have seen in my relationship with Brianna.
 In chapter 9 Supporting Others
 Empathy
 Perspective taking
 Supportive messages
 Supportive interaction
 I had to use all of these when her best friend passed away of a drug
overdose. I supports Bri the best way that I could. I was there for her and
she really appreciated it. I supported her through one of her toughest
times and she was thankful for that.
 In chapter 13
 Emotional disclosures- There are things that we tell each other that no one
else knows
 Warm feeling-Every time I see Bri I get this feeling that makes me happy
and I get that feeling every time
 Mutual understanding-When we talk we understand the other persons view
points and respect them.
 Overall I think that we get along well and if something does happen we
talk about it and figure it out as we go.

16. Evaluation of my Relationship
 I think that this relationship with Brianna is healthy
because when every we have a problem we figure it out
and move on. I know that have not been dating that
long. I want this relationship to work and hopefully I will
end up marrying her because I feel that strong about
how our relationship.
 What I have learned by doing this relationship
presentation is that I now see all the concepts that the
book talked about. People do what is book says
everyday but people don’t really think about it while
they are doing it.
 I learned a lot by reading this book and hopefully
learned these concepts will help me make this
relationship better.

17. Evaluation of my Relationship II
 I do think that I might be able to engage in meta-communication to
help me improve my relationship. I live at home with my mom and I
talk to her every night about that Brianna and I are going through
and my mom gives me pointers and I use them to help me make
the relationship better between my mom and I and Bri and I.
 I think that every single chapter in the book but the last one helps
my relationship with Brianna because like I said in the last slide
people do all of these concepts but don’t realize it until you read this
book.
 Some areas that need work o my behalf is that I need to tell
Brianna that I don’t like going to her friends house but I don’t know
how she is going to react to that.
 I plan to address these areas when the time is right and hopefully
she wont get mad at me.
 Overall this relationship with Brianna is going well and I would like
to keep her around.

18. Just some pictures of us.
1.Tony(Brianna’s friend’s Son) and I at movies
2.Brianna and I at Italian festival
3.Brianna and I on Booze Cruise
4.Brianna and I at my house,24th birthday party